Getting to grips with data security

About the authorCharles Eagan is the Chief Technology Officer for BlackBerry.UK enterprises are demonstrating a high degree of growth in their awareness of the need to secure data. Yet, the biggest misconception is the belief that as long as organisations have a strong security posture, they’re safe.Charles Eagan, Chief Technology Officer at BlackBerry, discusses the…

About the author

Charles Eagan is the Chief Technology Officer for BlackBerry.

UK enterprises are demonstrating a high degree of growth in their awareness of the need to secure data. Yet, the biggest misconception is the belief that as long as organisations have a strong security posture, they’re safe.

of security issues as well as their global and shareholder responsibility to protect data, and they’re reaching out to experts.

Recent events, where mass privacy breaches have occurred, have raised public awareness of the importance of transparency and responsible stewardship when it comes to how organisations manage their data.

Organisations are responding to consumer concerns over protection of their personal data.

GDPR has triggered a massive introspective focus within corporations, prompting reviews of privacy and data policies. Companies are now waking up to the need to secure data, and to the global governance elements of data collection.

What do you think is the biggest misconception preventing organisations from understanding the importance of developing a cyber resilience strategy in today’s digital economy?

Millions of Google users may have had their online browsing habits secretly tracked and passed on to advertisers, new reports have claimed.An investigation by privacy-focused browser Brave found that Google used hidden secret web pages to collect user data and create profiles that would let users be subjected to targeted adverts.The evidence is now being…

About the authorBernard Parsons is the CEO of Becrypt.The world of encryption is changing more than ever before. Today a lot of smaller businesses are looking at adding encryption for the first time, driven by recent regulations such as GDPR, and those that require encryption as part of the privacy enforcing mechanisms. However, along with…

About the author

Bernard Parsons is the CEO of Becrypt.

The world of encryption is changing more than ever before. Today a lot of smaller businesses are looking at adding encryption for the first time, driven by recent regulations such as GDPR, and those that require encryption as part of the privacy enforcing mechanisms. However, along with the benefits that encryption offers, there are also challenges that these smaller businesses are faced with when looking to adopt.

Based on the experience and feedback that Becrypt has attained, I have summarized the top-five issues that small businesses with software should think about if they are looking at adopting disk encryption, or if they’re looking at undertaking wider roll-outs of disk encryption.

See the best secure VPN providers for encryption

Ease of use

Organisations must look for products that are easy to use, easy and quick to install. These are obvious requirements that are partly about reducing the time and expertise required to install products in the first place. An important subsequent point is also total cost of ownership. If a product is not easy to install, it is usually a good indicator of a level of complexity that will remain as a long-term business overhead.

The more complex a product is, the more complexity there is to manage. This leads to higher levels of required expertise. It also increases the potential for support issues to occur over time. This drives up the product’s total cost of ownership for the organisation.

See the best in secure USB drives

Accessible support

Encryption can be a business-critical management asset, as well as a business-enabling technology. It’s therefore important that you’re working with an organisation – whether that

About the authorRichard Meeus is Security Technology and Strategy Director for Akamai’s EMEA region.Following a few tumultuous years of data breaches, cybersecurity vulnerabilities have been pushed to the front of the news agenda. However, despite cybersecurity budgets increasing, the threats and number of breaches continues to rise, highlighting that the current approach businesses are taking…

About the author

Following a few tumultuous years of data breaches, cybersecurity vulnerabilities have been pushed to the front of the news agenda. However, despite cybersecurity budgets increasing, the threats and number of breaches continues to rise, highlighting that the current approach businesses are taking – particularly small and medium-sized businesses – to protect their networks remain insufficient.

So, why are businesses continuing to invest in traditional network security measures that don’t appear to protect their data, and how should they use emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to secure their networks?

EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), businesses have had to change how they go about cybersecurity, and quickly. But the race in ensuring compliance, while keeping up to date on the latest threats, has left many security teams feeling stretched. Fortunately, one emerging technology may hold the key to helping secure these networks from internal and external bad actors: AI.

Machines to the rescue?

When an AI system is given access to an organisation’s internal network and monitoring systems, it can act as a million extra sets of eyes for an

Authorities in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are looking to tighten their data privacy laws and give more teeth to regulators after the introduction of EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).Privacy regulations around the world protect the rights of the individual’s data for fair and lawful collection and use of their personal information by…

Authorities in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are looking to tighten their data privacy laws and give more teeth to regulators after the introduction of EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Privacy regulations around the world protect the rights of the individual’s data for fair and lawful collection and use of their personal information by organisations.

Qatar launched its Privacy and Protection of Personal Data Law in 2016 while Bahrain implemented its data privacy law on August 1 this year. The UAE is expected to implement the law this year and Saudi Arabia by next year. The only countries left are Oman and Kuwait.

Phil Mennie, director for digital trust at consultancy firm PwC, said that the demand for privacy expertise exploded after the introduction of GDPR.

“We are seeing a lot of changes across the GCC region and a lot of privacy laws are coming in,” he said.

“Large organisations are impacted by the GDPR but we observed, unlike in Europe where privacy has been a topic for a very long time, in the Middle E